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  • In Across the Universe (Beth Revis), Amy only knows Elder as a sweet, somewhat awkward teenage boy trying to do his best to lead Godspeed. Therefore, when she suspects he snapped and murdered Luther, in the second book, she is severely shaken at the thought.
  • Albert Campion:
    • Any time the self-professed anti-gun Campion picks a gun over a less-lethal weapon.
    • When the very anti-killing Campion informs a mook who helped kidnap one of his friends that if she was hurt, he'd "break his rule" and kill him.
  • The Alice Network:
    • Captain Cameron is an Officer and a Gentleman, so it signals to Eve how upset he is when he doesn't get her permission before coming into her makeshift bedroom.
    • Later on, Cameron insults Major Allenton while drinking with Eve and she realizes how drunk he is — that was the first time she'd ever heard him badmouth a superior.
  • This happens in the poem "All my friends are dead.", where the elderly subject attends a family reunion, something that she hates and so would avoid, whenever she could, to the surprise of her relatives. When they ask her why, she says the title and points out that she's alone, afraid, and at the end of her life, trying to form connections so she won't die alone.
  • In Animal Farm, Benjamin, a morose old donkey who refuses to read even though he was one of the most capable thereof, has two moments of this towards the end, as the animals slowly realize Napoleon was becoming no better than Mr. Jones, who they had driven out of their farm. First, as Boxer is being delivered to the knacker, Benjamin alerts his fellow animals to what's about to happen with a tone of absolute panic in his voice. Later, when Muriel, another extremely literate animal, finds her eyesight failing her when the Commandments board looks a lot different than it used to and their pig leaders are moving about on two legs, he agrees to read it out for her. The text on the board? "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." That is the moment where the animals realize that the sight they had just seen has become the new normal and that it was too late to do anything about Napoleon's constant abuses of his power.
  • Animorphs: Since the series revolves around an invasion by Puppeteer Parasites, this can sometimes be used to indicate that someone is literally Not Himself. Temrash One-One-Four is an especially Bad Liar, quickly giving himself away when he was controlling both Tom (having him quit the basketball team) and Jake (by displaying Fantastic Racism).
    • Marco is known for being such a fountain of snark that whenever he's serious, it's safe to assume that something pretty upsetting is going on. At one point, during a mission that involved his mother, when he was understandably preoccupied, Jake had to take him aside and tell him to start cracking stupid jokes because he was scaring the others.
    • Jake did the same thing to Rachel in another book when she was acting too cautious.
    • Lampshaded in book #17: "Ax never yells. So when he does, it's usually a good idea to pay attention."
    • The sole time one of the Chee fight, the slaughter was so horrific that Rachel is crying afterwards.
    • In "The Separation", Rachel is hit with a case of Literal Split Personality: her "Nice" self is reduced to sobs by an ordinary jerk and calls Marco cute, while her "Mean" self is hyper-aggressive. Everyone who interacts with them before seeing them together is very confused.
    • Ax always addresses Jake as "Prince Jake" (Prince is a military rank to Andalites, not royalty), to the point that " 'Don't call me Prince.' 'Yes, Prince Jake.' " is an acknowledged Running Gag between them. If Jake doesn't say "Don't call me Prince" the situation is very serious, something they even acknowledge. Also Ax at one point doesn't address Jake as Prince, because he is so disgusted with what Jake had him do.
  • Artemis Fowl:
    • Julius Root apologizing after referring to another fairy as 'human-blooded' is used to convey just how serious an insult 'human-blooded' is amongst fairies.
    • In the second book, the LEP realise just how screwed they are when the usually gung-ho Captain Kelp orders a retreat.
    • At one point, Artemis (usually very serious and very articulate) calls Butler and simply shouts "Lollipops!" This makes Butler even more worried than he already is.
      • Artemis's even less fitting "Take cover" is lampshaded on the spot, as the pair analyze the complete inability of the brilliant but soft Artemis of producing a martial or commanding tone. Not that his typical tone would have been effective anyway; there's really no fast way to convey the concept of the use of a Troll as a breaching tool.
    • In the last book, Artemis (who is usually the very definition of Nerves of Steel) is so terrified of Opal Koboi and her plan to destroy the world that when he has to find a way to beat her, he draws a blank that lasts for most of the book.
  • The Berenstain Bears: In "Sick Days", Mama Bear is instantly concerned when Sister Bear is the last one up despite usually being an early riser, and doesn't care about missing the bus when she's usually somewhat of a good student. It turns out that Sister Bear is sick, hence the title.
  • Kopaka has a few such moments in the BIONICLE books. First, when believing Pohatu to have died in a cave-in, turns sappy and offers the mask they've been trying to find to Pohatu's people. In a later book, after being beaten by the bad guys, robbed of his mask and tools, and attacked by a bunch of innocent villagers mistaking his team for villains, he breaks down and attempts to kill the villagers without hesitation.
  • Bisclavret: So the king finds this wolf that's so weirdly tame that he adopts it as a pet. It hangs around court for a while and never harms anyone until it attacks this random knight. Later it also attacks the knight's wife...whose first husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As the reader already knows, the wolf is the missing husband, Shapeshifter Mode Locked by the pair's treachery.
  • In the second The Black Company book, when Goblin doesn't want to play tricks on One-Eye as usual and, instead of smiling and humiliating his rival, actually gets provoked by him — worse, attacks him with his bare hands — everybody knows there is something wrong.
  • In The Black Stallion's Filly, Henry has a strict policy against anyone hand-feeding the eponymous horse, because her previous owners' habit of such is what taught her to bite people. At the end of the book, however, he hand-feeds her a carrot, because she just won the Kentucky Derby on an injured leg, and if that doesn't merit a special treat, nothing does.
  • Brotherband: In The Invaders, Stefan stops teasing one of the other Herons when Ulf and Wulf, identical twins who spend most of their time arguing, both tell him to shut up. The book explicitly states that he reacted because Ulf and Wulf agreeing with one another comes across as that strange.
  • In Roadkill, the fifth book of the Cal Leandros series, Robin Godfellow, aka lust incarnate, seriously considers becoming monogamous. All of his friends instantly assume he must be seriously ill.
  • Captain Underpants: Mr. Krupp is a major Jerkass and Dean Bitterman, who's noted as a Perpetual Frowner. When he smiles at George and Harold in the first book, the boys are immediately unnerved, having never seen him do so and realizing he's on to them. In the film, the sight of him smiling actually freaks them out and gives them chills. Then in Book 11, he happily greets George and Harold the day after they take an important test, and even hugs them. They immediately know something’s up.
  • The Calf Of The November Cloud: When Konyek returns his tribe and angrily accuses his cousin of wanting him dead, his whole family is shocked since Konyek had always been kind, calm and soft-spoken.
  • Someone in Card Force Infection acting unusually is a good sign that they've picked up an infected card.
  • Caves of Ice:
    • When Ciaphas Cain note  realizes that his squad just found a Necron tomb and is giving orders to seal it, he knows that his "everything's under control" mask slipped big time. This actually reinforces his orders to the troopers.
      [Grifen] no doubt thought that anything bad enough to leave a hero of the Imperium in need of clean undergarments was something she didn't want to meet.
    • In fact, anytime Cain thinks Necrons are involved, he is entirely willing to sacrifice his reputation and the luxury that goes with it- it's the only motivation he will actually intentionally get into fights with orks, tyranids, and Chaos loonies for (or so he claims- he's clearly not the abject coward he describes himself as, particularly during the end).
  • In The Chronicles of Narnia series, this happens in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When the ship is attacked by a giant sea serpent, Reepicheep yells at everyone to push the serpent off the boat rather than fight it. Since Reepicheep usually leaps at any opportunity for glory in battle (at one point earlier in the book he had to be restrained from challenging a dragon to single combat), this is unusual enough to startle the rest of the ship's crew into helping him.
  • City of Light: The normally stoic Rahze showing emotion (mostly negative) is very worrying for his companions.
  • Clarice Bean: In "Don't Look Now", this is played straight when Betty is uncharacteristically moody and it turns out to be because she's moving house, and later subverted when Clarice hears her parents arguing and thinks they're getting a divorce (because they usually never argue) but they don't.
  • In A Clash of Kings, Tyrion Lannister is genuinely caught off guard when his sister Cersei, who has spent her entire life belittling him and abusing him, actually thanks and compliments him for his efforts to improve King's Landing's defences. Tyrion takes a moment to enjoy the praise...and then tells Bronn to find out what the hell she's up to.
  • In the final novel of the Codex Alera, Tavi is rather shocked when his lover Kitai becomes furious with him for carrying on a relationship with her without marrying or courting her. Note that Kitai has never given a damn about Aleran laws or customs (or really ever noticed them, except to snark about them) and her own people's view on this sort of thing is rather more... relaxed. So why is she so bent out of shape? She's actually pregnant with her and Tavi's child, and while perfectly happy to flout Aleran rules herself, Kitai does not want her child to have to deal with the major social stigma Alerans place on illegitimacy.
  • In Cracker Jackson, Jackson's father has had three women divorce him, including Jackson's mother, because he is a huge jokester who refuses to be serious under any circumstances. The one time he stops joking? When his son confides in him that his (Jackson's) childhood babysitter is being abused by her boyfriend. After that phone call, Jackson's mother comments that she didn't even know her ex-husband was capable of being serious, and that she had never heard him get angry before.
  • In the Dark Nest Trilogy, Luke Skywalker (whose job it is to exemplify tranquility and serenity) drops the GFFA equivalent of the F-bomb.
  • Discworld
    • Rincewind is an inept coward who would much rather run away from most problems rather than face them head-on. In Sourcery, Rincewind challenges the most powerful source of magic on the disc with a half-brick in a sock, and then holds off a swarm of eldritch abominations long enough to escape, armed with only a sock full of sand.
    • Conversed by Twoflower in The Light Fantastic, when he reasons that Rincewind's uncharacteristic lack of fear about the Red Star implies that it's not the world-ending threat most people assume it to be.
    • He does it again in Interesting Times when faced with the horrors of the Agatean Empire. Rincewind concludes that there are times you have to stop running, even if it's because there's nowhere left to run to.
    • Ponder Stibbons, normally quite easygoing actually gets stroppy with Ridcully and Henry (formerly the Dean) in Unseen Academicals, because he genuinely fears they might be about to start duelling. This view is backed up when he looks over to Rincewind, and he's hopping around putting his sock back on.
    • Death almost never ends his sentences with an exclamation mark, so you know he's pissed off when he shouts at the New Death for setting himself up as a ruler over mortals, in Reaper Man.
    • This is also invoked for Death when he speaks emphatically of the Auditors' hatred for humanity in Hogfather (represented as italics), shocking Susan.
    • Death's first major role in Mort, where he is throughout the book made to be The Stoic, and is even explained to lack the physical capability for feelings, but in the climax of the book he expresses extremely human rage, unlike ever before or after, and when Mort is at his mercy, he does a mocking, cruel Evil Laugh, which also is a completely unique expression of negative emotion — right before revealing that he decided to spare Mort and his friends after all.
    • Vetinari takes pride in his ability to play Sam Vimes like a fiddle and get him to do the best job imaginable... all by keeping him suitably pissed off. Vimes even tends to punch the wall outside Vetinari's office as he leaves, sometimes hard enough to require repair. Until one day Vimes departs, and Vetinari doesn't hear the telltale thump, and realizes that he might have gone too far.
    • The Librarian hates to be called a monkey (orangutans are apes), and will apply a great deal of physical violence to remind people when they forget this. That's why, when the Senior Wrangler calls him one in The Last Continent and gets away with his head still screwed on, the other wizards become quite concerned.
    • There's another occasion when someone calls him a monkey, and he pats their hand comfortingly. Although that latter one is because the character in question was so mad that they might have literally out-murdered the Librarian if the Librarian had tried to "correct" him.
    • In Carpe Jugulum, Agnes knows that Nanny Ogg is really worried when she ignores an opportunity to point out an Accidental Innuendo Agnes made.
    • In Interesting Times we see Perpetual Smiler Twoflower actually lose his temper.
    • In A Hat Full of Sky, Rob Anybody is so worried about the hiver going after Tiffany that he starts to lose interest in hunting, fighting, and other activities typical of the Nac Mac Feegle. When he refuses a drink of Special Sheep Liniment, the other Feegles are briefly convinced he's dead.
    • In The Fifth Elephant, while searching for Angua, Carrot not only raises his voice when Gaspode tells him a wolf has been caught in a nearby village but actually uses deception to acquire the animal so it can help them locate her. For straight-laced, inscrutable Carrot, that's tantamount to any other man having a full-on nervous breakdown when his girl goes missing.
    • In Night Watch, when a young Corporal asks Sgt. Colon where he, Vimes, and Nobby (and we find out later Reg Shoe) are going and why they were all wearing sprigs of lilac. The usually jolly Colon rounds on the youngster and tells him that anyone who had the right to ask that already knew and was headed in the same direction. Vimes has to lead him away to calm him down.
    • In Making Money Mr. Bent has personally checked every clerk's work with amazing speed and total accuracy for years. When he incorrectly marks one calculation wrong the junior clerk ashamedly looks over it, then pulls out a notebook to work it out on paper, then has one of the senior clerks check his work herself, then she calls over all the other senior clerks to check it as well. Then they write a note saying that the junior clerk appears to be correct and put his work back in Mr. Bent's in-tray, and the room holds its breath while they wait for him to get to it. When he runs out of the building screaming, the entire bank shuts down. Not long after Mr. Bent dresses up as a clown and strangles two would-be assassins with balloon animals.
    • In The Sea and Little Fishes, Granny Weatherwax is asked to tone her ego down a bit for the Witch Trials that year... So she spends the entire day nice, helpful, and humble, completely freaking out the entirety of Lancre who expect she's just saving up her nastiness for some horrible vengeance down the line. After the entire judging committee has a collective break-down and even Nanny Ogg has had a Moment of Weakness, it turns out Granny was running a Xanatos Gambit where she would either have shown everyone she could be nice or ran a day-long Paranoia Gambit.
    • In The Truth, about the only thing Vimes and William de Worde can agree on is that Vetinari's actions after supposedly stabbing his clerk are extremely incongruous. No member of the Assassins' Guild, especially not The Stoic Vetinari, would break down into incoherent apologies after attacking someone, especially when the person's only unconscious, not actually dead. They're trained to check for such things. A random lookalike being fed lines by conspirators who did the stabbing isn't.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Mac The Bartender is The Quiet One, to the point of typically being monosyllabic. The seriousness of any particular book is proportional to the number of words that he says. A complete sentence is enough to concern Dresden, and in Changes he actually speaks several lines in a row.
      "I looked at him, shocked. He'd...used grammar."
      • Changes are also this on a meta level. Up till now (and afterwards), all books had two-word title, that doubled as a clever wordplay. This one? Well, considering what actually happened here, title is completely deserved...
    • Also, in Blood Rites, Lieutenant Murphy meets Harry's mentor, Ebenezer McCoy. As they are on a hunt for vampires in Chicago (and he doesn't have a driver's license), Murphy tells him (rudely) to get out of the driver's seat. Harry asks him to do it, slipping in the word "sir". Murphy drops everything she's carrying, because Harry isn't being a wise-ass for once, and him be actually respectful to an authority figure is something that you only hear once. Also justified in that Ebenezer is one of the very few people Harry is actually respectful to, and it's basically the only time Harry uses any sort of Honorific in the series.
    • In Dead Beat, Harry asks Bob about Kemmler, the author of a book that the visiting group of Necromancers are all hot and bothered about. Bob has a minor freak-out and tells Harry that Kemmler was straight-up capital-E Evil. This immediately catches Harry's attention, mainly because Bob's view on morality is... sketchy at best. This happens again later in the book when Harry talks to Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness of the Winter Sidhe, who also calls Kemmler a madman and a monster — which makes an impression coming from someone who Harry knows has spent more than three years on the last person who betrayed her, crucifying him the entire time.
    • Toot-Toot the dewdrop faerie is normally fearless and a ravenous junk-food addict. When Toot tells Harry to run, it's serious; when he tells Harry to forget the doughnut and run, it's dreadfully so.
    • The one time in his life that Morgan calls Harry by his first name is when he tells Harry to stand down and let the Wardens arrest Morgan for murder, rather than get himself killed defending a man he knows to be innocent.
    • Two incidents related to Harry himself and mental magic: In White Night, Murphy points out that he's been flying into a rage and burning things more than usual lately, which points out how Lasciel has been influencing him subtly. In Small Favor, Harry spends most of the book getting into sticky situations full of monsters and not incinerating them out of hand. This is because Queen Mab removed his memory of how to do so (and took away his blasting rod for good measure), ostensibly for his own good.
    • "The son-of-a-bitch kidnapped my daughter" — this from a man who never swears and has previously chided Harry for doing so even mildly. Which is nothing compared to when he hears that the White Council has just kicked Harry out of the organization, and he proceeds to express his anger by cursing them out in a dozen languages for several minutes.
    • Also in Battle Ground (2020), Harry requests a certain piece of information from Listens-To-Wind, and Listens-To-Wind responds that he wants a year to probe the rest of the Senior Council on whether or not that is a good idea. Harry is indignant, but Listens-To-Wind calmly counters that Harry knows exactly how arrogant wizards are and that he should take a few minutes to ponder the true meaning of "a Senior Council member considers themselves unqualified to make this call on their own". This is enough to make Harry a little shaky.
  • The Elenium:
    • Talen is found to have followed the knights on their mission to Zemoch. When questioned, he stammers and stutters, eventually giving an incredibly unbelievable story about why he followed them. Since Talen has never once been shown to be at a loss for words and has proven the ability to make up believable lies on the spot, this clues the knights in that Aphrael, the Child Goddess, is influencing Talen, since She had wanted him on the mission in the first place and is known to be a horrible liar.
    • This trope is the clue to Sparhawk that someone is using magic to influence the various kings of Eosia into confining the Pandion knights, as they are believing outlandish claims without any evidence and have turned aggressive towards their allies. It is revealed to be a spell that induces belief being cast by Annias, which is another example because as a church man, he is not permitted to learn magic.
    • In the sequel saga The Tamuli, whenever Sparhawk stops being his short-tempered self and goes eerily calm, you know shit is gonna go down. The first time it's humorous, when he doesn't yell at Elhana for making it so she'll go to the Tamul Empire—which is currently at the gates of a civil war, although this time it was because Kalten took Sparhawk to a crypt and made him yell and wave his arms there so he'd have a clear head to confront his wife. The second time, less so, since it was caused by the kidnapping of his wife.
  • Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic: Lorelai first drops her It's All About Me and Jerkass attitude in Chapter 7, when Rick jumps in front of a deadly spell she wanted to cast on Molly (knowing that Molly is immune to her magic anyway). For the first time in the story, she immediately obeys the orders Molly barks out, casts a spell without Rhymes on a Dime, and even apologizes to her. It makes sense that her attitude would radically change in an instant after very nearly killing someone, especially since it doubles as a painful reminder that she might have done it do her mother in the past and could easily do it again, which is one of her greatest fears.
  • In The Expanse the best way to tell that Chrisjen's worried (And so everyone else should be) is when she stops swearing or being witheringly sarcastic. One character gets concerned when she gets through a whole conversation without swearing once.
  • In Flora and Ulysses, when Flora's mother, usually an "anti-napper", takes a nap, Flora becomes instantly worried that her mother is in shock, or even possessed. She might have been in shock, but she seems fine when she wakes up.
  • Galaxy of Fear:
    • At one point Lando Calrissian, teaching Zak about playing cards, tells him "A good rule to follow is that if the other guy is acting normal under unusual circumstances, you can bet he's bluffing".
    • Army of Terror has The Stoic Papa Wolf Uncle Hoole, confronted with the Kivan wraiths menacing him and his charges, just... stop fighting completely, take a Pose of Supplication, and wait for death. When someone else drives them away, he who is so good at Dissonant Serenity is profoundly shaken. He is The Atoner and blames himself for their deaths, just as they blame him.
    • In Spore, well, here's a quote.
      Hoole touched the gash delicately. "I will live." The stern Shi'ido tried to look as light hearted as his stony face could manage. "It was not my best landing, but all things considered, I would say it wasn't my worst."
      Tash grimaced. Hoole never joked. The fact that he was trying to probably meant he felt worse than he looked.
  • Gaunt's Ghosts:
    • Daur is considered the most straitlaced and disciplined of the lot. In Only In Death, he nearly hits Rawne, which is taken as a sign of the insidious effects of Hinzerhaus. In Blood Pact, when he is caught helping out in one of Rawne's scams, Hark thinks that the regiment's discipline and morale has hit a new low.
    • Only In Death has some more of these. Normally unflappable Mkoll gets spooked, chatty Maggs is unusually silent...
  • In The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes, Beatrice has never made a mistake in her life, so the audience is "stunned" when she pops a water balloon in her face.
  • Goblins in the Castle: Very early on in Goblins on the Prowl, Fauna knows something's up when she sees a group of goblins sneaking through the forest, ducking behind trees and looking behind them suspiciously, as if they don't want to be seen, rather than bounding along like usual.
  • GONE series:
    • In LIES, Caine Soren is visibly disturbed by the fact that his girlfriend Diana Ladris A) isn't beautiful anymore and B) Isn't being snarky and sarcastic. He notes that this is a sign that she's finally lost her will to live. Serious business, indeed.
    • This trope is lampshaded in FEAR, when Quinn says that he knows everything will be alright as long as Edilio is ever the calm, sane hero. In this book, he isn't.
    • In the same installment of the series, Lana seems to lose hope when she notices Caine isn't being a cocky, arrogant sociopath, actually seeming quite insecure and timid, and remarks; "You gotta give he guy some credit; he has a genius for doing the wrong thing. We actually need him to be the bad guy, and now he's mr. meek and mild."
    • Devout Catholic Astrid loses her faith in God... And Promptly decides that's a good excuse to throw her brother out a window.
  • In the short story Goodbye, Nena, the first sign that the boy's grandmother is truly dead and it's not just another Disney Death is when his male relatives, who are usually very affectionate, don't slap him on the back or kiss him like they usually do.
  • In Good Omens Aziraphale the angel may no longer be completely uncorrupted by humanity, but he's still angelic enough that he's the undisputed master of Gosh Dang It to Heck!. Then, he swears. And shit just got serious.
  • Harry Potter
    • In the earlier books, moments when Hermione was in favor of breaking the rules were this.
      • Most notable is when Harry and Ron save Hermione from the troll in Philosopher's Stone. She saves them from getting into trouble by lying and saying she thought of going after the troll and they were only rescuing her (when really, the troll found her by chance and Harry and Ron broke the rules and went after it, instead of going to their dormitories). Not only does Hermione lie to a teacher to cover for Harry and Ron's rulebreaking (something which she refused to go along with earlier), but she uses a cover story that made her out to be the rulebreaker. Harry compares the situation to Snape giving out candy.
      • In Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione slaps Malfoy across the face for insulting Hagrid. It scares Malfoy enough to shut him up and get him to leave.
    • Rubeus Hagrid is usually very polite to everyone in a folksy way and typically doesn't let much bother him, even if he doesn't quite get why people wouldn't be as keen on getting as close to dangerous magical creatures as he does. But God help you if you ever badmouth Albus Dumbledore where he can hear you: Vernon Dursley called him a "crackpot old fool" in front of him and Hagrid immediately went into rage-mode and tried to turn Dudley into a pig as punishment; and when Igor Karkaroff gets irate with Dumbledore in Goblet of Fire and spits at Dumbledore's feet, Hagrid damn near strangles him while demanding an apology.
    • A rather terrifying example happens at the end of the first book. When Harry finds "p-p-poor s-stuttering Professor Quirrell" in front of the Mirror of Erised — and he isn't stuttering...
    • In Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore loses his temper for the first time in the series when a pack of Dementors nearly kill Harry. Hermione mentions that it was absolutely terrifying.
      • And again when confronting Barty Crouch, Jr. in The Goblet of Fire - Harry realizes just how much of a threat Dumbledore is to the Death Eaters, as he sees for the first time that Dumbledore isn't just a harmless old man but is a powerful and dangerous wizard capable of magic that Harry can't even pronounce.
      • Ron and Hermione talk about Dumbledore having a case of this once he finds out Mundungus Fletcher abandoned his watch on Harry in order to talk to someone about stolen cauldrons. Hermione simply says that he was "scary" during it. It also comes up during the school year, as the formerly personable Dumbledore constantly ignores Harry, but it turns out at the end he has his own reasons.
      • Dumbledore is always incredibly polite to everyone he meets. He's also a big believer in second chances and doesn't judge people who are trying to atone for their sins. The only time we ever see him break both of these barriers is when Snape comes to him before the death of Harry's parents and is willing to let Harry, who was a baby, and his dad die all so he could get a shot at cleaning up a love triangle and Comforting the Widow. Dumbledore straight-up tells him, "You disgust me" and Harry notes that he'd never heard Dumbledore speak with such contempt.
      • For a much more somber example of OOC behavior from Dumbledore, in Half-Blood Prince when he needs to drink the contents of a basin in order to acquire the Horcrux hidden at the bottom of it, which is obviously full of some kind of seriously nasty potion. We've seen Dumbledore angry, compassionate, disappointed, elated, and playful up to this point. But now, as he makes himself to continue drinking it and then Harry has to all but force-feed it to him on Dumbledore's own orders before they even started this little quest, he all but breaks down into tears from both the physical and emotional pain that it brings on him, eventually screaming for Harry to kill him just so that it won't hurt anymore, and it's absolutely heartbreaking to see this happen to one of the most strong-willed characters in the whole series.
    • Also from Goblet of Fire, Harry is somewhat surprised when Neville Longbottom responds to the teacher's question in a Defense Against the Dark Arts class when he usually only does that in Herbology, specifically naming the Cruciatus Curse. As Harry later learns from Dumbledore, Neville's parents have been tortured into insanity with this very curse by Death Eaters.
      • In the following book, when Malfoy mocks Harry about ostensibly being insane and mentions a ward for that at St. Mungo's, the wizarding hospital, it's Neville who physically attacks Malfoy, to basically everyone's shock, and Harry and Ron have to pull him off Malfoy. Ron has no idea why and Neville doesn't explain, but Harry already knew why (see spoilers above) and the rest of the main cast learn by the end of the book.
    • During the denouement of the same book, Harry sees McGonagall lose her temper for the first and only time in the series. She gets into a screaming match with Fudge, the Minister of Magic, in the hospital wing once she’s found out that he sicced a Dementor on Barty Crouch Jr. without telling anyone. She says that Crouch should have been allowed to give testimony and that he did it behind Dumbledore’s back (who has a special hatred of dementors, likely because his father died in Azkaban) because he knew he’d never have allowed him to be killed like that or be brought onto school grounds.
    • In The Order of the Phoenix, Fred and George (who had previously gotten revenge via subtle trickery) began punching Malfoy in front of the school after a Quidditch match because he was insulting their parents. Meanwhile, one of the things that truly breaks Ron out of his snarky, laid-back personality is hearing someone insult his family, Harry, or Hermione.
    • Played for Laughs on the day Fred and George release the fireworks. Later that day Hermione tells Harry and Ron, who stare morosely at their pile of homework, to take a break, reasoning that they have the upcoming Easter holidays to do their homework.
      Ron: Are you feeling all right?
      Hermione: Now you mention it... d'you know... I think I'm feeling a bit... rebellious.
    • After Fred and George's grand departure send the school into chaos, all of the Hogwarts staff except Filch ignore the constant rulebreaking, even Snape and McGonagall, preferring to watch Umbridge struggle to maintain order. When Peeves tries to loosen a chandelier, McGonagall even tells him "It unscrews the other way."
    • Arthur Weasley is usually extremely kind, affable and polite, leaving the berating, shouting and screaming at their children to his wife, Molly. According to Ron in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Arthur completely lost it in the past when Fred and George tried to trick Ron into an Unbreakable Vow (which kills you if you break it) as a prank, and it was one of the only times where Arthur was more scary than his wife.
    • A rather frightening example happens in Deathly Hallows, where it turns out that the corrupting power of Horcruxes can cause this sort of thing to happen. Between a combination of low self-esteem and his wearing the locket, Ron sinks into a suspicious, depressed state which in turn dampens the hope of Harry and Hermione.
    • Sweet, motherly Molly Weasley reacts rather badly when Bellatrix nearly kills Ginny.
      Molly: NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!
    • Another one in Deathly Hallows is when Lupin, who is usually the calm voice of reason, starts shouting about how he should never have married Tonks, how guilty he feels about potentially passing on his condition to his unborn child, and how his new family will be much better off without a father and husband they should be ashamed of. Fortunately, a What the Hell, Hero? from Harry sets him back on track, but it's quite jarring to see just how low an opinion of himself Lupin has, especially since he's one of Harry's few remaining parental figures and looked up to by a great number of other characters.
      • As long as we're talking about Deathly Hallows, let's remember Hermione's out-of-character actions, too: First she uses the "Muffliato" Charm (which she used to disapprove of in the past due to its inventor) to help the trio better hide their tracks, especially once they have to go on the run; then, during the Battle of Hogwarts, at one point she asks Harry to utilize his Psychic Link with Voldemort to gain access into his thoughts — something she always preferred Harry to avoid and block out whenever possible before then — in order to find out Voldemort's location so the trio can seek him out and proceed with their destruction of the Horcruxes. And that's not even going into her increased willingness to curse (though not to Ron's level), as demonstrated when at one point she all but says "Holy shit!", something that shocks Ron, who is himself notoriously profane in his language and had himself earlier in the book asked Hermione, similarly in Wizarding terms, how in the holy name of shit she had come in possession of Horcrux books.
  • Hive Mind (2016):
    • Adika is unwilling to trust managing Amber's final line of defense to anyone else when it is believed the unit is under attack...until Wilder shows up, at which point he immediately yields control. This shows the incredible esteem he holds in the man considered to be the greatest Strike Team leader in Hive history.
    • When Keith publicly apologizes to Amber, everyone believes he must be sincere because Keith never apologizes to anyone.
  • This is the only way to detect Changed Ones in Hometown. Sometimes the symptoms are subtle, but when the local Big Friendly Dog starts acting more like a rabid wolverine, you know something's wrong.
  • Honor Harrington is generally portrayed as a military professional: killing is an unfortunate consequence of her career, she takes no pleasure in it, and she can be courteous to former military opponents who tried to kill her because that was their job. Those who have known her long enough instantly recognize (and are scared shitless by) her change in bearing when she really, truly wants someone to die. When she discovered that an enemy had not just permitted, but ordered the rape and murder of her subordinates, she turned right around and tried to shoot him. Her subordinates had to physically hold her down to keep her from killing a prisoner. Later, she legally executed the man who assassinated her lover in the most painful way she could manage.note 
  • House of Robots: Robots Go Wild!: After E's rampage through town, and the ensuing PR nightmare it brings the Hayes-Rodriguez family, Sammy sees just how much it has impacted his family.
    • Maddie, Sammy's usually chipper little sister, is actually visibly sad.
    • Sammy's parents, who are still like lovesick teenagers, actually have a fight when his mom finds out about his dad losing his job.
  • In the Imperial Radch novel Ancillary Sword, people know that something is wrong when Breq doesn't sing — this is despite her singing voice being implied to be rather bad. It's such a common background noise that it unsettles people when the singing stops. Another example is when Lieutenant Tisarwat acts in a way that seems to be out of character for the person reports on her imply her to be. Breq gets suspicious. It turns out that she is right; Tisarwat has been given implants that removed her own personality and replaced it with that of Aanaander Minaai, effectively making her a body part of the lord of Radch space.
  • N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy: This trope applies whenever a god acts against their "affinity" since it pains and weakens them to do so. Sieh, god of childhood, only appears as an adolescent or adult when he's very unhappy; and when Madding, god of obligation and Equivalent Exchange, stops keeping records of outstanding favours with Oree, it's a sign that he cares deeply for her.
  • Journey to Chaos: What convinces Eric that Dengel was legitimately a Parental Substitute for Asuna? His private documents refer to her by name and many of them are exclusively about her, such as her wedding day. For someone whose ego is said to be the size of a mountain, better proof would be hard to come by.
  • Keeper of the Lost Cities: In the first book, when Sophie is leaving her human family, she realizes that she's going to miss her Annoying Younger Sibling Amy, and that even though they fought all the time, the fighting was actually fun. She rushes over to hug her, and her parents gasp.
  • Kitty Norville: Kitty is a chatterbox by nature who prefers to avoid violence and tries to get any fellow lycanthropes she meets to let the human aspects of their psyches call the shots as much as possible. So when she (in human form, mind you) lunges at an unarmed normal man on sight and does nothing but literally snarl when bodily restrained, the first question out of the mouth of someone that has known her for a couple of days is "What did you do to her?"
  • In Larry Niven's short story "Flatlander", our hero Beowulf Shaeffer has just finished doing some scans outside the spaceship. He turns to his companion:
    Beowulf: Elephant, have you noticed a tendency in me to use profanity for emphasis?
    Elephant: No, not really.
    Beowulf: Well, it's goddamned radioactive out there.
  • The Last Days of Krypton: In-Universe, Jor-El recognizes that Gur-Va must be on trial for something particularly awful when Councilor Kor-Te requests that the Council not keep a record of the trial "so that future generations need not be sickened by it."
    Kor-Te read and quoted from the Council annals and documents as if they were holy scripture ... It was inconceivable that such a man would propose striking an event from the historical record.
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • When Aragorn is presented in the book, even before we know his real name, he seems tough and collected, but he definitely cracks up for a moment when he is trying to explain the very real terror of the Nazgûl. For a badass like Aragorn, who we immediately know is hardened by decades of trekking unpleasant areas and encountering all kinds of animals (and we'll later learn has battled the forces of Mordor many times), to react this way comes across as a warning that the ringwraiths should definitely be feared.note 
    • In Moria, when Legolas recognizes the balrog, he just drops his weapon and wails in terror. Up until this point Legolas had reacted to more or less everything that happened to the fellowship with breezy, dismissive confidence, so it's a good sign of exactly how big a problem they've just run into.
  • The Lost Fleet: Captain John Geary is a very calm, stoic sort of man who usually keeps his temper under firm control. He firmly believes that a good leader praises in public and admonishes in private, and when he does reprimand someone he doesn't feel the need to raise his voice. When he blows his stack and yells at a junior officer in front of the entire bridge crew, that junior officer has done something to really deserve it. Leaving enemy prisoners tied up onboard a captured ship as they prepare to scuttle it, for example.
  • Loyal Enemies:
    • The plot kicks off when Shelena encounters a nocturnal predator in the middle of the road in the middle of the day. Instead of showing off first as any shaggy would do before a fight, he attacks her immediately, and thus she begins her investigation.
    • When Shelena discovers that they are being watched while investigating the elven king Lliotarel's bed chamber, Shelena decides to go for dragging Veres onto the bed and starts smooching and undressing him, assuming he'd get the hint that something is not right. Subverted because nope, Veres just gets angry. As it happens, in his opinion it is absolutely not out of character for Shelena to pull such a stunt because she's bored or otherwise up to no good, prompting a lengthy muffled dialogue in which Shelena tries to convince Veres that she's not just doing this for shits and giggles.
  • In The Magic School Bus, Miss Frizzle is an undeniably Cool Teacher who has always got it together and seems to know exactly what is going to happen next. Even when she and the kids appear to be in danger (be it stuck inside a volcano that's about to erupt, as reptiles in a chilly room, seemingly lost in outer space, or the eponymous bus being seemingly destroyed in the recycling episode), the Friz has got complete control over the situation and will never put her students in a situation that they will not be able to figure a way out from. That being said, there is at least one exception over the entire run of the series, and that is in one of the chapter books of the series, specifically "The Wild Whale Watch". A whale-watching excursion gets Frizzled up and soon the kids are looking at the whales from below the water's surface in mini-submarines seating two kids each. However, things go awry when Tim and Wanda wander too far away from everyone else, and when the others are looking for them in the bus, the bus suddenly gets damaged and Tim and Wanda's sub disappears off the buses' radar. Miss Frizzle then says something along the lines of: "Whoops...that wasn't supposed to happen...", indicating that this was something that she, for once, did not see coming, eliciting a Mass "Oh, Crap!" from the rest of the kids and making the situation a lot more serious than usual.
  • In The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family, Lara's father is a talented cook. When he makes a dinner for the family that's almost inedible, Lara and Caroline know something's up. They learn the answer when they sneak into his office and find a piece of paper with the word "severance."
  • A Master of Djinn: After being forced to strangle Fatma by the false Al-Jahiz's spell, Siti is distraught, plaintively asking if she's all right when they see each other again, with her having clearly been crying. This is quite the contrast with her usual energetic, teasing attitude. She's usually wholly fearless as well, but expresses profound terror at how he controlled her.
  • Maximum Ride: What's the first thing that tips the Flock off to the fact that Max has been replaced with an identical clone? She offers to cook them breakfast, and Max is a Lethal Chef. (Even without the slip-up, she would've been outed at some point — Angel is a telepath, and she managed to pick up on the ruse immediately as a result.)
  • Zigzagged in Melanie's Marvelous Measles. Melanie is usually early to school, so when she's late, Tina is at first concerned, then thinks she must've just overslept. However, it turns out that she has measles... but she only has this book's version of the illness.
  • The Mermaid's Daughter: Kathleen has always loved swimming in the ocean more than anything else. It's the only thing that alleviates the severe chronic pain in her feet. Then she starts hearing the voices of the sea witches saying "Come home" whenever she's in the water. She thinks they're telling her to drown herself, like her mother. Harry sees Kathleen stepping back to avoid getting her feet splashed and knows something's seriously wrong.
  • Ham from Mistborn spends the better part of three books mired in interminable ponderings, dilemmas, and hypotheticals. Finally he answers a question with "No", and the questioner's response is to ask, in shock, if he really just gave a straight answer. Given the question asked was if there was hope of survival, it's taken seriously.
  • In Monk book Mr Monk Is Cleaned Out, Monk—who is typically insistent on cleanliness—decides to "protect" the dirt on the Sebes' car. The reason for this is that he has figured out that this dirt is GPS Evidence which links Mr. Sebes to the murders.
  • In Murderess, Déaspor and "Hat Lad", who usually have a rather smug and somewhat condescending yet benign attitude, become very angry when Lu or Hallwad and Aucasis refuse to take on their mission.
  • In the third Nevermoor book, Morrigan realizes that President Wintersea, who she arranged to be allowed to cross into Nevermoor, is in league with the Big Bad Ezra Squall, who has been banned from the city for a hundred years and been desperately trying to find a way back in. However, before she can do anything about it, Squall contacts her himself... and begs her to help him stop Wintersea from crossing over, despite the fact that he could slip through with her. When she questions this, he explains that, while he works for her, he fully believes her actions will lead directly to Nevermoor's destruction. As he points out, he would do anything to return to his beloved city; slaughter thousands, burn civilizations to the ground, give up his very humanity. So the mere fact that he is willing to lock himself outside for what could possibly be forever, just to stop President Wintersea from getting in, should be a sign that she needs to listen to him. Morrigan realizes he's telling the truth, especially when she realizes this is the first time she's ever seen him afraid.
  • In Noob, Arthéon figures out that the new update to the Fictional Video Game he's playing is probably going to make accessible a continent that was so far protected by a Perpetual Storm. One of Arthéon's leads to figure out if he's right is to go pay a visit to the Bold Explorer Non-Player Character that is known to have mapped the continent's shape and see is the game's update has caused any change of behaviour in him.
  • In the Paladin of Shadows book A Deeper Blue, Mother Lenka laughing heartily is recalled with horror.
  • In Ravelling Wrath, Rinn (the narrator) often comments on how Yali doesn't express negative emotions very much, so when Yali does, Rinn automatically considers it super serious.
  • In Donnelly's Rogue Wave, while Neela is telling her parents about Abbadon's return, she repeatedly refuses offers of sweets. This furthers their belief that she is mentally ill, as the 'old' Neela had a problem with emotional eating.
  • Roys Bedoys:
    • In “Stop Cyberbullying, Roys Bedoys!”, Hopper’s mother can tell he is sad when he spends all day and night in his room.
    • In “Don’t Share Personal Items, Roys Bedoys!”, the first sign Loys is sick is when he’s taking a nap even though it isn’t his usual nap time.
  • Denny from Sanctuary is old enough to be uncomfortable with any computer that doesn't use a command line interface. He can participate in the house's group chat, but every time he writes anything, he agonizes over whether he's saying the right things, and his grammar is always impeccable. So when Morgan gets the message "somethng wierd down here," they and Araminta immediately know something major has happened.
  • In The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, this is an Enforced Trope by the System at the beginning. When Shen Yuan is transmigrated into the body of the scumbag villain Shen Qingqiu in the webnovel series he was reading, the System initially penalizes him every time he does something that would be out of character for the character he's playing like showing compassion to the disciple he's been constantly abusing or even smiling. It's not until he completes a quest that the System gives him more leeway to act OOC, although his sudden changes in behavior still do not go unnoticed by the other characters around him.
  • In A Series of Unfortunate Events Aunt Josephine is extremely obsessed with grammar. When the Baudelaires find her apparent suicide note Klaus begins to analyze the grammatical errors, but Violet disgustedly asks who would care about grammar in their situation. Klaus points out that Aunt Josephine would and realizes the mistakes are actually a coded message.
  • In Shadow of the Conqueror, Ahrek notes how strange and bizarre Daylen's behavior (acting very uncomfortable, dropping matters when he'd usually argue, trailing off his sentences, abruptly ending conversations, going to his room, and sinking into an Angst Coma) around Lyrah is, even by Daylen's standards, but doesn't figure out what's causing it until Cueseg figures things out and gives him The Reveal.
  • Shaman Blues:
    • When Earth starts to sing out of harmony, rather than in its usual rhythm, it's enough to call the alarm.
    • Ghosts stumbling like they were drunk, not following the Ley Lines, walking around in Jacob Marley Apparel, and advancing several power ranks within days are a similarly worrying sign.
  • The titular Skulduggery Pleasant is a sharp witted and snarky skeleton that never seems to be without a witty or insulting remark, and when he doesn't have one it's not a good sign. So when in the second series he meets up with Uther Peccant, a foul tempered teacher at Corrival Academy, it's not surprising to see Uther tear into Skulduggery, but when Skulduggery simply takes every insult sent his way with clear discomfort it shows somethings up. It's later revealed that this isn't just Uther being his usual angry self, but rather that Skulduggery and Uther are brothers, with the latter letting out his anger at his brother for failing their family and for getting their mutual friend Ghastly killed, two things Skulduggery can't argue against.
  • E.E. Smith's Skylark Series: The reason Dick Seaton knows the scientific knowledge he needs to save the Earth exists is because of independently-evolved legends from two worlds of a large and complex star cluster, which describe their gods stunning mortals who attack them. This is despite ten thousand years of strike-to-kill conditioning in both races. Ergo the legends must contain a grain of truth to have lasted for that long without "stunned" being changed to "killed", and the "gods" must be the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens he's looking for. He turns out to be right.
  • In the Dale Brown novel Sky Masters, normally composed Jon Masters lets the pressure get to him, up to the point of rant-inducing slight, something his chief assistant notices immediately.
  • In Terra Ignota, Martin Guildbreaker is an aggressive and serious investigator who is always careful to make sure he has all the facts before making a decision and is dismissive of anything frivolous. So when he says that he's pretty sure that J.E.D.D. Mason can read minds, Commissioner General Papadelias takes the statement seriously.
  • The Sunne in Splendour:
    • Affable and fair, and having shown more than once he's willing to forgive his ineptly treasonous brother George, Edward IV suddenly sets upon executing George. No amount of pleading from their mother will change Edward's mind. Their younger brother Richard, who has every reason to hate George, is horrified given the grief that George's death will cause their mother and the fact that George is in the midst of some serious Sanity Slippage. What Richard does not know is that George knows that Edward's marriage is invalid due to bigamy and his sons therefor ineligible for the crown.
    • Richard himself shows no interest in the crown and remains loyal to Edward's memory and determined to be a good Lord Protector for his nephew. Then, he suddenly and ruthlessly seizes the throne, executing any adult that might stand in his way. This is a result of him learning the truth about Edward's bigamy and that his in-laws were plotting to take him out to consolidate their own power. He doesn't have his nephews murdered, but when they disappear, Richard's recent actions lead many to believe that he did.
  • Teen Power Inc.: In Crime in the Picture, Nick is startled when "calm, sensible, level-headed Sunny" screams at him about how stupid and risky it was of him to delay a potential disaster by lying to his mother and some local bigwigs.
  • The first sign Alys gets that something is wrong in Terra Mirum Chronicles is that the sheriff arrives at the restaurant she works at an hour ahead of his usual time. It turns out he was at her best friend Charlie's house where Charlie committed suicide the night before.
  • This Is Not a Werewolf Story, loosely based on Bisclavret (see above), has a similar setup: Raul has been trapped in wolf form, but everyone notices how tame he acts. Later, when he flips out over seeing Vincent, everyone's first thought is that said character must have done something to the wolf for it to behave that way.
    • The book also does this in its first chapter, titled "This is the Chapter Where the New Kid Runs So Fast, Raul Decides to Talk."
    • Raul is usually a Papa Wolf for five-year-old Sparrow. Later in the book, Raul is both suffering from a concussion (noted to make him act irrational) and stressed about the likely death of a beloved pet. As a result, he yells at Sparrow in front of the whole school, though he feels terrible about it almost immediately.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird is full of these: Scout notes the only time she ever heard Atticus raise his voice (when he's defending his parenting style to Aunt Alexandra) and the only time she ever heard him call something a sin (to kill a mockingbird). Jem decides to follow Atticus the night the mob threatens him outside the jail because Atticus took his car instead of walking as usual. Scout and Jem are shocked at Tom Robinson's trial when Atticus takes off his jacket and loosens his tie because they've never seen him do that during the day. Scout knows that Aunt Alexandra is seriously shaken when the children have been attacked at the end, because she brings Scout her overalls to put on, after spending the entire book trying to get her to stop wearing them. And, of course, there's Boo Radley leaving his house for the only time in living memory in order to protect them from Bob Ewell.
  • To Shape a Dragon's Breath: While on break at Masquapaug, Theod and Anequs recieve a threatening, racist telegram telling them to give up their dragons or have them and their people wiped out if they don't. Anequs—who so far has been at academy reluctantly, often missing home and her people, and only connecting to the Anglish as much as she has to to learn—wants to cut her winter vacation at home short and return to the academy for protection immediately out of fear. Her grandmother, who has also been against Anequs living among the Anglish, agrees.
  • Underground: After the second semi-finals fight, Swanson starts acting extremely calm, polite, and even nice to Robyn when all he previously did was berate and beat her. Robyn is immediately wary of his new strange behavior and it turns out he had plans to kidnap her sister in order to keep Robyn in line.
  • Under Heaven: When Shen Tai announces, near the end of the book, that "[h]e was going home; the Kanlins would take the horses to the emperor," Wen Song ends up yelling at him. "She'd just called him by his name, which she never did."
    "I am touched that a Kanlin Warrior would care so much about her employer's choices," he said, trying for a lighter tone.
    She swore. She never did that, either. Lu Chen looked startled.
  • Chloe from Unidentified Suburban Object is normally a hard-working, straight-A student and the best violinist in her school. When her parents tell her that they're from another planet, she's so shocked that she starts forgetting to do school assignments and practice violin, and even gets detention for talking back to the principal. This is so out-of-character for her that even the kids who don't like her are concerned.
  • Universal Monsters: In the epilogue of book 6, when Joe and Nina realize Captain Bob isn't wearing his hat (and in fact he claims to have thrown it away), it's the first sign that something's different. He then admits that their experience has really changed him, and he doesn't want to just watch movies — he wants to go out and do something, and to be called "Robert" rather than "Captain Bob". The other two are both more than a little weirded out by this.
  • The Vazula Chronicles: At the beginning of A Kingdom Discovered, Heath recklessly challenges another archer to a contest in which they fire arrows at branches in a swift-moving stream and try to haul them onto the bridge. The weight of Heath's branch almost pulls him off the bridge and over the nearby Inevitable Waterfall. Heath's brother Percival demands to know why Heath, who is normally more cautious, would do something so dangerous for no good reason. The reason is that Heath thinks his Love Interest Merletta is dead, but he's keeping her existence a secret, so he can't answer Percival's question.
    Percival: I don't need you to tell me I've done stupider things for the sake of competition. But this is you, Heath. You're smarter than this.
  • Vivenna from Warbreaker believes that women should dress modestly in high-necked dresses, with skirts that come down to the calf at least. However, when she decides to become more of an Action Girl, she dons a man's trousers and shirt.
  • In Warrior Cats, Jayfeather invokes this by saying he's glad that the cranky elder Mousefur isn't acting all sweet and kind because that would mean she was getting heat stroke from the recent hot weather. Later when she starts acting mopey because of Longtail's death, Jayfeather gets really worried about her well-being.
    • Played for laughs in The Fourth Apprentice, when Blackstar welcomes the journeying cats into his territory with open arms. Lionblaze responds with a snarky "Who are you, and what have you done with Blackstar?"
  • In Wayside School Gets a little Stranger, Mr. Gorf forms an Evil Plan to get revenge on the class by stealing their voices and making their own mothers think they hated them by calling them on the phone with their voice. Miss Mush comes in, and Mr. Gorf makes her think nothing is wrong... until he says, in Kathy's voice, "Have a nice day!". This alerted Ms. Mush that something was up — Kathy is a Jerkass.
  • When You Reach Me: Wheelie is the school secretary who knows all of the students, what class they are in, and even who is absent. But when the police come looking for Marcus, Miranda realizes just how bad the situation is when Wheelie asks them to repeat his name and ask what grade he is in.
  • The Witling takes less than two pages to establish that Parapfu Moragha views Thengets del Prou as a smug, self-satisfied twit. Moragha commissions him to "seng" — to use clairvoyance to scout — an area in the first scene in the book, and Prou claims not to have found anything, but says it without smirking or being snarky; based on this, Moragha correctly guesses that Prou is lying.
  • Wolf Hall
    • Thomas Cromwell breaks down in tears at the end of a year which has seen the death of his wife and daughters and the irrevocable disgrace of his master, Cardinal Wolsey, which threatens to drag him down after he's spent his life trying to build a respectable situation for himself. George Cavendish (another of Wolsey's men) is deeply disturbed when he realizes that Cromwell is crying, and takes this as a sign that there's no hope left for Wolsey.
    • In a less dire example (or less immediately dire), Cromwell realizes that Henry has actually fallen in love with Jane Seymour when they're chatting about someone's health complaints and Henry declines to go on at length about home remedies like he usually does.
  • In the first chapter of World War Z, Dr. Kwang Jing-shu says he knew that something very bad was happening through a combination of this trope, Meaningful Echo, and Out-of-Character Alert. An old army comrade renowned for seeing the worst in any given situation, Dr. Gu Wen Kuei, once had a rare non-curmudgeonly moment when they were performing extremely difficult surgery in the middle of a dangerous border clash in Russia, and said to the nearly-disemboweled patient, "Don't worry, everything's going to be all right." Years later, when Jing-shu calls him about a small outbreak of unusual symptoms, Kuei, who knows what's going on, repeats the familiar reassurance, and that's when Jing-shu realizes that the outbreak is not isolated and the situation is much worse than he thought.
  • The Worst Thing About My Sister: The first sign Melissa is actually unconscious and not pretending is when she doesn't respond when Marty tickles her.


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